Hey, sorry for the vague title.

I’ve picked up another lancer RA Sportback for a song, so looking to build a half decent street car, stock block still, 400-450whp maximum but would much prefer big top end to fussing over the down low.

For an idea of cost effectiveness, the car cost me $9k NZ Pesos, which is just on $6000 freedomdollars.

E85 is not an option for me, so neither is a stock turbo setup. Loose plan is a stock frame TD06-25g, fuelling intake etc to suit, nothing over the top, just fun. My last build was a little rocket so a touch more would be great.

Now given I have to buy either stock Evo components or aftermarket, I have a couple parts I’m on the fence about. We get stung badly by shipping costs down here and a lot of smaller items aren’t cost effective to bother with.

Downpipe and 02 housing - is there a lot of gain to these, I’ve seen a lot of conflicting info on it, some saying there’s maybe 10hp at 400hp levels and others swearing it’s a must do. I’m looking at around $1k for an aftermarket one.

Exhaust manifold - again, much the same. I’m struggling to find good numbers on if a tubular one is really worth it or not and any experience here would be appreciated. Again, for a half decent manifold I’m looking at $800-$1200 and given what the cars worth to start with….

For less than those two, I can chuck a set of cams in instead - would they out-perform the mani/DP?

Labour costs don’t factor into all this, I have a workshop available, and I self tune.

Any help or advice much appreciated, cheers